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Sunday, February 2, 2014

Vancouver Police Department - Sex Enforcement Guidelines

The Vancouver Police Department engaged in a process with sex workers and sex worker organizations to revise their sex enforcement guidelines. The tragedy of the case that has come to be known as The Missing Women Case in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver BC, is what led to this process. We must acknowledge the lives that were lost in order for this momentous new policy to occur.

Two extremely cool developments that came out of this process are:

VPD changed the name of their VICE Unit to Counter Exploitation Unit to demonstrate that they no longer view sex work as a "vice" but as an occupation. Their goal is to reduce exploitation of sex workers rather than to reduce rights of sex workers.

A new position has been created called "Sex Industry Liaison" to confer with police and other city officials when a decision impacting sex industry workers requires input from sex workers. This liaison will ensure that sex worker's rights are upheld and their concerns are addressed appropriately.